Eley v. Bagley

Decision Date14 May 2010
Docket NumberNo. 06-4503.,06-4503.
Citation604 F.3d 958
PartiesJohn J. ELEY, Petitioner-Appellant,v.Margaret BAGLEY, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: David Lawrence Doughten, Law Offices, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Sarah A. Hadacek, Office of the ohio Attorney General, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David Lawrence Doughten, Law Offices, Cleveland, Ohio, Jeffrey James Helmick, Helmick & Hoolahan, Toledo, Ohio, for Appellant. Sarah A. Hadacek, Office of the Ohio Attorney General, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: SILER, CLAY, and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.

GIBBONS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which SILER, J., joined. CLAY, J. (pp. 971-77), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner-appellant John J. Eley was convicted in Ohio of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery and sentenced to death. He now appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, challenging the state trial court's failure to conduct a competency hearing, his trial counsel's effectiveness in developing mitigation evidence, and the trial panel's consideration of mitigation proof. For the reasons set forth below, we now affirm the district court's decision and dismiss Eley's habeas petition.

I.

The Ohio Supreme Court summarized the facts of the case as follows:

During the early afternoon of August 26, 1986, Eley was visiting Melvin Green at the home of Green's girlfriend in Youngstown. According to Eley, he and Green were just sitting around when Green suggested that they go down to the “Arab store.” Eley and Green left the house and proceeded down a path through the woods leading to the Sinjil Market. Along the way, Green showed Eley a “Black Snub nose gun,” and told Eley he “was going to take the Arab off.” Since the proprietor of the store, Ihsan Aydah, knew Green's face, Eley agreed to go in alone and rob the store while Green waited outside.
Eley entered the store and told Aydah to put his hands up and to turn and face the wall. Green had told Eley that Aydah had a gun under the store counter, so when Aydah lowered his hands and went under the counter, Eley fired a shot. Eley claimed that he aimed at Aydah's shoulder. However, the shot hit Aydah on the right side of his head, approximately four inches above the earlobe. Aydah died the next day of shock and hemorrhage due to a gunshot wound to the head.
Just before Eley fired the gun, Green entered the store. After the shot, Green ran behind the counter and got into the cash register. He took Aydah's wallet while Aydah lay wounded on the floor. As the two left the store, Green gave Eley a brown paper bag with the money and wallet. According to Eley, they went up the street, “got to the path and run up the woods.”
...
Several days after the murder, Eley was arrested by Youngstown police at the residence of his cousin's girlfriend, Carlotta Skinner. After his arrest, Eley told police that he and Green had split the money taken in the robbery, which was around $700. However, Eley later gave the money back to Green “because he said it was all on him and he had to get out.”
...
[After being arrested, i]n his voluntary statement Eley admitted that he and Green had robbed the Sinjil Market, and that he shot Aydah. [The arresting officer] testified that Eley did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs during the interview and was “very calm” and “passive.”
The grand jury indicted Eley on one count of aggravated murder with a specification that the murder was committed during, or immediately after, the commission of an aggravated robbery (R.C. 2929.04[A][7] ), and that Eley was the principal offender. This count also carried a firearm specification. In addition, Eley was indicted on one count of aggravated robbery (R.C. 2911.01 [A][1] and [2] ) and one count of conspiracy (R.C. 2923.01[A] ). Each count carried a firearm specification.
In May 1987, Eley waived his right to a jury trial and opted for a trial before a three-judge panel. Eley pled not guilty to the charges against him, thereby withdrawing a prior plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.... 1
Trial was held before a three-judge panel on May 11-12, 1987, but the defense chose not to present any evidence. The panel found Eley guilty of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, the felony-murder capital specification, and two of the three firearm specifications, but not guilty of conspiracy.

During the mitigation hearing, several family members testified on Eley's behalf. Eley's mother, Cecilia Joseph, divorced Eley's father when Eley was seven or eight years old, and stated that Eley had “not much” of a relationship with his father. Joseph testified that on Christmas night 1964, her second husband had been drinking and began choking her and her daughter. At that time, Eley stabbed the second husband with a knife in order to stop him. Joseph testified that Eley dropped out of high school in the ninth grade, but later entered

the Job Corps and learned to be a welder. Eley sent money home to his mother during this time, and gave her money to help her finish paying for nursing school. Joseph stated that while Eley has had problems with drugs and alcohol, he is a better person when he is not under the influence. She characterized Eley as “church oriented,” and believed he had been “born again.”
Eley's sister, Susan Laury, testified that Eley had helped the family financially while he was in the Job Corps, and that Eley is normally a “quiet, sweet, gentle person that wouldn't hurt anybody.”
Dr. Douglas Darnall, a clinical psychologist, found Eley to be of borderline intelligence, and ranked him in the twelfth percentile on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test. According to Darnall, Eley has a history of chronic alcohol and polysubstance abuse, but exhibited “no evidence of psychosis or major defective disorder.” In addition, Darnall testified that Eley understands the difference between right and wrong. Darnall found Eley to be remorseful, but Eley never mentioned that he felt remorse for the victim. However, two police officers who witnessed Eley's confession testified that Eley was remorseful before he made that statement. Eley made a short unsworn statement at the mitigation phase that consisted of several biblical quotations from the Book of Romans.
After deliberation, the panel unanimously found that the aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, and sentenced Eley to death. Upon appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the convictions and sentence of death.

State v. Eley, 77 Ohio St.3d 174, 672 N.E.2d 640, 644-46 (1996). After considering the eighteen issues Eley raised on appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. Id. at 654. Eley's petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court was denied. Eley v. Ohio, 521 U.S. 1124, 117 S.Ct. 2522, 138 L.Ed.2d 1023 (1997).

Eley filed a petition for post-conviction relief under Ohio Revised Code § 2953.21 on September 20, 1996. The state court conducted an evidentiary hearing on Eley's competency but denied Eley's motion for a competency determination on the ground that he had no right to be competent in a post-conviction proceeding. The court then denied post-conviction relief on April 1, 1999. State v. Eley, No. 86-CR-484 (Ohio Ct.Com.Pl. Apr. 1, 1999). Eley timely appealed, but the Seventh District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the post-conviction petition on November 6, 2001. State v. Eley, No. 99-CA-109, 2001 WL 1497095 (Ohio Ct.App. Nov. 6, 2001). The Ohio Supreme Court declined to exercise jurisdiction over Eley's post-conviction petition. State v. Eley, 94 Ohio St.3d 1506, 764 N.E.2d 1036 (Table) (Ohio 2002).

On July 12, 2002, Eley's sister, Susan Laury, filed a notice of intent to file the present petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, along with motions to stay Eley's execution, to appoint counsel, and for a competency evaluation to determine if Eley was competent to waive any further appeals. The district court entered a stay, but while the parties were briefing the last two motions, Eley filed a notice of intent to file a habeas petition himself. Eley filed the petition on March 19, 2003, raising fourteen grounds for relief. See Eley v. Bagley, No. 4:02CV1994, 2006 WL 2990520, at *4 (N.D.Ohio Oct.18, 2006). In November 2003, Eley filed a motion to stay the habeas proceeding so that he could file a mental retardation claim in state court pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). This claim was later denied. On October 16, 2006, the district court denied his habeas petition on all fourteen grounds. Eley, 2006 WL 2990520.

Eley timely appealed and now raises three issues. The district court granted a Certificate of Appealability (“COA”) as to the first two: (1) whether the trial court violated Eley's due process rights by failing to hold a competency hearing; and (2) whether Eley's trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective by failing to investigate or prepare mitigating evidence for the penalty phase. We expanded the COA to include: (3) whether the three-judge trial panel failed to consider and give effect to valid mitigation evidence at sentencing.

II.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), governs all habeas petitions filed after April 24, 1996. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 326-27, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997). AEDPA provides:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State
...

To continue reading

Request your trial
270 cases
  • Moore v. Warden, London Corr. Inst., Case No. 1:11-cv-155
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. Southern District of Ohio
    • March 8, 2012
    ...a habeas claim is precluded by procedural default. Guilmette v. Howes, 624 F.3d 286, 290 (6th Cir. 2010)(en banc); Eley v. Bagley, 604 F.3d 958, 965 (6th Cir. 2010); Reynolds v. Berry, 146 F.3d 345, 347-48 (6th Cir. 1998), citing Maupin v. Smith, 785 F.2d 135, 138 (6th Cir. 1986); accord Lo......
  • Wilson v. Warden
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. Southern District of Ohio
    • August 27, 2015
    ...a habeas claim is precluded by procedural default. Guilmette v. Howes, 624 F.3d 286, 290 (6th Cir. 2010)(en banc); Eley v. Bagley, 604 F.3d 958, 965 (6th Cir. 2010); Reynolds v. Berry, 146 F.3d345, 347-48 (6th Cir. 1998), citing Maupin v. Smith, 785 F.2d 135, 138 (6th Cir. 1986); accord Lot......
  • Bohannon v. Warden, Allen/Oakwood Corr. Inst., Case No. 1:12-cv-542
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. Southern District of Ohio
    • October 4, 2013
    ...alleges a habeas claim is precluded by procedural default. Guilmette v. Howes, 624 F.3d 286, 290 (6th Cir. 2010)(en banc); Eley v. Bagley, 604 F.3d 958, 965 (6th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom, Eley v. Hauk, __ U.S. _, 131 S.Ct. 822 (2010); Reynolds v. Berry, 146 F.3d 345, 347-48 (6th Cir. 199......
  • Kaeding v. Warden, Lebanon Corr. Inst., Case No. 1:11-cv-121
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. Southern District of Ohio
    • September 11, 2012
    ...a habeas claim is precluded by procedural default. Guilmette v. Howes, 624 F.3d 286, 290 (6th Cir. 2010)(en banc); Eley v. Bagley, 604 F.3d 958, 965 (6th Cir. 2010), cert. denied sub. nom. Eley v. Houk, __ U.S. __, 131 S. Ct. 822 (2010); Reynolds v. Berry, 146 F.3d 345, 347-48 (6th Cir. 199......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT